Regular readers know what a baseball fan The Princess is, and won’t be surprised to learn she is watching playoff games when she should be working while simultaneously working very hard for the Preppy Princess. She wastes countless hours occasionally scans a headline or two about the sport; imagine her surprise upon reading this in a Sports Illustrated story about superstar Manny Ramirez:

“Manny Ramirez looked jarringly preppy in a gray, argyle-style V-neck as he stood outside the Dodgers clubhouse not long after his Game 1 destruction of the Cubs in the NLDS last week.”

PHOTO: Jed Jacobsohn/Getty

Manny Ramirez? Preppy? Methinks not. This is an extraordinarily gifted athlete best described as a baseball savant, to modify a term in the story. Part of what makes Manny “Manny” is the hair.

PHOTO: Jed Jacobsohn/Getty

“He didn’t look like his rumpled on-field self at all: He was polished, with dreads cut neatly. And then it happened … his inner Mr. Magoo materialized. Manny emerged in a corridor of Wrigley Field, but he wasn’t looking for the Dodgers’ team bus. He wanted a taxi to take him wherever Manny likes to go — outer space, perhaps.”

We’re struggling to remember the last time we saw hair like this on anyone described as “preppy,” although it is actually clear in the story the author doesn’t think he is either. Manny is a lot things, many of them good, some not-so-wonderful, but preppy is not one of them.

A friend who struggles with the fact we don’t watch the show is constantly tormenting us with updates and the weekly plot synopsis of the upcoming episode. We have to admit Monday’s show title is really very clever: “New Haven Can Wait.” One of the funnier things in the upcoming episode has to be “Chuck’s” kidnapping, hypothetically carried out by Skull and Bones members while visiting Yale. Honestly.

We are trying to decide if it is a sign of advancing age that we aren’t crazy about Taylor Momsen’s look seen during Friday’s shoot …

It just all looks a little, well, unnecessary. We didn’t realize she played “Cindy Lou Who” in the “How The Grinch Stole Christmas,” but after thinking about it we definitely see the resemblance. Sadly, we had the same reaction to the dress (nightie?) worn by Blake Lively, who plays Serena van der Woodsen on the über-hot show.

Of course he also includes Lacoste among his first-string, although we have never been able to confirm the fashion house is an official sponsor, as Speedo is. And when asked about going to Fashion Week next time around?

“…we asked if Phelps got invited to Fashion Week. “I have no idea if I did or not. I’m not sure where I was at that point, but I was traveling and I was super busy.” But if the designers in Paris had invited him to the shows, he so would have gone! “I’ll go anywhere. I’ll go enjoy myself. Come on — it’s fun going to those things…”

One heads-up for anyone still interested in the Phelps Phans tee-shirts we mentioned in a post back in August: they are gone. Apparently the phrenzy is either over or just too much to keep up with, we’re not sure.